8th Ed. Lizardmen versus High Elves

Finally, i had the opportunity to play the game i was looking forward to having for quite a long time. I had to travel 3 hours for it, but it was totally worth it: after a 2 year hiatus i played 8th edition again! My opponent played High Elves, it was a 2K points game. My list:

Slann, channeling combo, soul of stone, bsb

Scarvet, Dawnstone, Cold One, GW, Gamblers armor

25 Sauri, hws

5x10 skirmishier skinks with javelins

26 Temple Guard

Stegadon with Sharpened Horns

2 Salamanders with snacks.

My opponent brought:

Lvl 4 wizard, high magic.

Lvl 2 wizard, high magic.

BSB (without World Dragon)

15 Silver Helms

2x5 Reavers

16 White lions

20 Phoenix Guard (he had all his characters except the lvl 2 here, intended to have 3++ all the time via spells, so no need for World Dragon)

Bolt thrower

Frostheart Phoenix

An Eagle

Deployment

Due to my 5 units of skinks, i was able to deny my opponent a flank. All my stuff was on my left while the HE was in the middle of the board. My Stegadon and cowboy were hidden from the bolt thrower, i was able to keep them out of harms way of the bolt thrower for the entire game. My Slann block was facing of against his Frosty and Silver Helms, with the other Sauri and the Stegadon on the flanks.
HE. Turn 1

My opponent moved up to the middle of the board. His magic and shooting did very little, i lost 2 skinks and 2 temple guard. Uneventful first turn for my opponent.

LM Turn 1

I did not want to charge, as i had some good shots lined up for my salamanders if i threw high. I did, with a lot of hits on both infantry units, and i roasted 5 phoenix guard and 4 white lions, already punishing my opponent's small unit sizes. My skirmishers severely damaged his reavers, there were 2 left in each unit at the end of the turn. My magic was a double 1, which i spent on hand of glory on my Stegadon, which still managed to miss the Silver Helms when i shot its bolt thrower at them. It was clear that my shooting phase was a lot more dangerous than my opponent's.

HE turn 2

Knowing that he could not just stand in the open, the HE charged the Silver Helms and the Frostheart Phoenix into my temple guard. His reavers engaged my skinks, and were after a stand and shoot themselves killed in the combat that followed. My opponent missed an 8 inch charge on my salamanders, letting them have another good shot in the next turn. Magic was uneventful, but combat was not, the charge killed around 20 of my temple guard due to strong thunderstomps and the lance charge. My TG did only a little damage back ,3 silver helms died. My Slann was in trouble and already almost on the first rank, but support was pretty close by, as both my Stegadon and the other Sauri would be able to flank charge in my turn.

LM turn 2

I flanked his Frostheart Phoenix and Silver Helms, creating a 5 unit combat consisting of his Frostheart Phoenix and Silver Helms, my temple guard being engaged from the front, and my stegadon charging his Frostheart Phoenix and my other sauri charging his silver helms. I moved my skinks in front of his other CC units, trying to delay their entry into the combat that mattered: the one with my temple guard unit. In the shooting fase, my skinks now not annoyed anymore by reavers killed his bolt thrower in one lucky volley, after all, 2 6s from 10 shots is all it takes. It all came down to the TG combat, and my Stegadon started off insanely well, rolling a six on impact hits, getting two unsaved wounds... which did 6 wounds to the frosty due to Sharpened horns, killing it before it could do anything. My opponent was already in trouble due to the flanked silver helms, but this totally swung this combat in my favor, as the strenght debuff also wore of for the rest of my units. He did no damage back, i killed 6 more silver helms. He had to roll double 1s, ran, and my sauri caught up with them, killing the majority of his army. The photo below was taken just after i killed his Silver Helms, at the bottom left where my slann is, 11 silver helms and a frosty just died. I have never seen Sharpened Horns do so much work, it was pretty lucky.

HE turn 3

Knowing it was probably already over already, the HE player charged my skinks to perhaps mop up my salamanders and skirmishers. He did not get through my skink units though, and they successfully fled combat. Magic was uneventful, and my opponent had no shooting left.

LM turn 3

I was able to flank charge the Phoenix Guard with my still large sauri block, and circled what was left of his force with my skinks. My scarvet ran of the table pursuing the last remaining Reaver. The sauri broke the phoenix guard after one turn of combat, and when my Sauri caught them, my opponent surrendered, only having 2 elves left on the table. Picture below is taken just after the Phoenix Guard failed their morale test.

My opponent struggled with deployment as he was unable to deny my refused flank, which really let me control the board and the combat. There is little he could do about this though, having 5 units of skinks just gives LM a massive deployment bonus, without giving up much. His main mistake was not targeting my salamanders with magic missiles. If he, for example, had cast Soul Quench and Fiery Convocation on his first turn on my TG and a Salamander, i would have probably lost the Salamander. I think this, plus the fact i got really lucky with my Stegadon made this game pretty lopsided in my favor. It was however, not really clear that it would be a wipe until the moment the Silver Helms ran, if all my temple guard (plus perhaps my slann) had died in the combat, my opponent would have had full control of the magic phase, which could have led to an interesting endgame. Nonetheless, i am really glad i was able to play a game again, and i look forward to doing so again. It is too bad nobody in my local area is playing 8th anymore, which leads to the necessity of me to travel pretty far for another game, but for this one time, it was pretty cool. I know where to go if the urge to play 8th becomes too strong again. Thanks for reading, this is my first battle report, i hope it is somewhat clear what happened in the game.

Bravo! I have beaten elves before but I have never massacred elves like you did.

I figure Reavers would devastate our skirmishing troops, but I guess your opponent. I have to consider taking fifty Skinks like you did. Normally I like field 26 or 39. I like to field units of Skirmishers in units of 13 because it means they have to have lose four Skinks to force a panic test, but by going for unit quantity over unit quality you managed to "win" deployment which let you play the game by your terms.

I have a very old White Dwarf from 2004 that I found nearly new in a charity shop once, that commemorated the release of 4th Edition 40K. In this issue there was a Warhammer Fantasy article that gave you some general tips on how to win a game, and one of the forefront tips on there was ‘Always try to force your opponents to react to your moves, not the other way around’. This means make sure you launch some offensives at places in your opponent’s line where you think he is weak. Just try to move a unit towards an area you see to be vulnerable, and already your opponent might be forced to react to a move you make - this could then relieve pressure on an area they’ve been pressing forward on if they attempt to move some of their troops there to the area you’re threatening.

In the case of deployment, if your opponent starts deploying a large number of units on one side of the board to launch a major attack, it may be tempting to put a lot of your units on the same side, but that is what your opponent wants - to get you to react to him. Try concentrating your forces in places where your opponent’s force is particularly vulnerable - if there are several missile units that are more or less unguarded by melee units, put some of your melee units facing them to give you the opportunity of storming up and wiping those easy kills out. In other words, react to the weakest parts of your opponent’s army, not the strongest.

Bravo! I have beaten elves before but I have never massacred elves like you did.

I figure Reavers would devastate our skirmishing troops, but I guess your opponent. I have to consider taking fifty Skinks like you did. Normally I like field 26 or 39. I like to field units of Skirmishers in units of 13 because it means they have to have lose four Skinks to force a panic test, but by going for unit quantity over unit quality you managed to "win" deployment which let you play the game by your terms.

Very impressive.

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Thanks as well! I really found that reavers were no issue at all with the amount of Skinks i ran. Unit for unit, the reavers do little damage with their bows (probably a 5+ to hit, 3+ to wound with a 5+ save, with only 5 shots). If they charge you, you have enough shots to whittle them down to 2-3 guys, which you can beat in CC. If you can get one volley of before they charge you, they are basically crippled for the rest of the game. This led to me being able to control the board and the shooting phase, which won me the game.

And yes, i like quantity over quality with Skinks, auto-winning deployment has so many benefits.

Haha, exactly! The HE player did not bring World Dragon though, so it was not a full meta list. I do not think that World Dragon would have been an issue with my exact list, but just saying that the HE list was not as competitive as it could have been.

Can you explain this? I suck at deployment and often end up reacting to my opponents

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As Agragax helpfully pointed out, it is all about reactions. I would however like to ad that making your opponent unable to efficiently react to you is also a worthwhile strategy. How to do this? Get 4-5 units of Skinks, and deploy them first, whatever the matchup. Just spread them around the board, they are fast enough to go where they need to go when the game gets rolling and it is not that big of an issue if they just die; they are cheap. By doing this, you often force your opponent to put down his big blocks first, at which point you can put down your stuff where you want them.

For example, in this game, my opponent had a Bolt Thrower and i had a Solo Scarvet with 1+ rerollable armor save and a Stegadon. He deployed his Bolt Thrower as his very last thing, but as i had more units i could choose to deploy both my Scarvet and Stegadon after he deployed his Bolt Thrower behind a building, out of LOS of his Bolt Thrower, and right in front of his Frostheart. My Stegadon could thus survive the first turn, while also getting the decisive charge on his Frostheart (i would say my Stegadon and Scarvet have a good matchup against his Frostheart).

So, TLDR, get a lot of units of Skinks, always deploy them first. Then give your important units good matchups (your elite infantry vs their regular infantry, a salamander across of an infantry block, a scarvet against a monster) or try to isolate a slow unit such as a large block of Halberdiers so that they cannot participate in the main battle with their slow M. Doing this requires game knowledge, do not be afraid to ask your opponent stats of their units to decide if your units have good matchups. If you are good at this, games of 8th can be won in the deployment phase, do not underestimate its importance! Also always keep in mind, whatever happens, you choose where your guys die, and you can make use of that, sometimes throwing away a unit of Skinks to hold up their unit for just a turn, and win another combat.